1979 – Pioneer 11 becomes the first Human spacecraft to visit Saturn. This success is the culmination of 22 years of work to visit and survey those planets that had been seen by Humans prior to the invention of the telescope (TNG: "Loud As A Whisper", okudagram)

2038 – NASA loses contact with the Charybdis following a failure in the ship's telemetry system. It was later learned that the Charybdis was contaminated by an alien lifeform which infected and killed all personnel except mission commander Stephen G. Richey (TNG: "The Royale")

In reality, Cassini–Huygens was launched in 1997, started orbiting Saturn in 2004, and the mission ended in 2017. However, the mission was represented in a distinct retro manner, using a more classic look for the mission patch and pre-digital technology effects, raising questions about these dates being the same within the Star Trek universe.

Many of the dates in this list are derived from real-world information.

The similarity of the Starfleet logo/crest to that of NASA design (not to mention the similarity of the mottos) suggests that the NASA component might have had an influential role.